THE HARVARD COLLEGE 
PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON 

PAINTED BY EDWARD SAVAGE 

BY 

JUSTIN WINSOR 



Reprinted, 50 Copies, from the Harvard Graduates 
Magazine, 1895 



SAVAGE'S PORTKAIT OF WASHINGTON. 

Edward Savage was born in Princeton, Mass., in 1761, and 
died in that town in July, 1817. He was originally a goldsmith ; 
but later turned for a livelihood to painting portraits and to engrav- 
ing his own pictures. He acquired no great distinction, beyond 
securing a popular recognition for his engravings. Not long after 
Washington's inauguration. Savage, then in Boston, and intending 
to go to New York, suggested to President Willard of Harvard 
College, that if the painter was made the bearer of a request to 
Washington to sit for a picture to be the property of the College, 
he would be glad to paint it and give it to the Corporation. Such 
a request of Washington Willard made in a letter dated November 
7, 1789, adding that " it would be exceedingly grateful to all the 
governors of this Society, if the portrait of the man we so highly 
love, esteem, and revere, should be the property of, and placed 
within. Harvard College." Savage did not present this letter till 
shortly before December 23, 1789, for at that time Washington 
wrote to the President of the College, stating that he had received 
the request at Savage's hands a few days before, and that the 
limner was then at work on the picture. Washington's diary 
shows that he sat to Savage first on Monday, December 21 (three 
hours), Monday, 28th (" all the forenoon "), and Wednesday, 
January 6, 1790 (an hour and a half, " to finish the picture"). 
" I am induced," said Washington, " to comply with this request 
from a wish that I have to gratify, as far as with propriety may 
be done, every reasonable desire of the patrons and promoters of 
science. And at the same time I feel niyseK flattered by the 
polite manner in which I am requested to give this proof of my 
sincere regard and good wishes for the prosperity of the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge." 

There was some delay in the picture (which is on a canvas 25 
inches by 30) getting to its final resting-place, and this interval 
seems to have been improved by the painter, in making at least 
two copies of the portrait, one for John Adams, which has de- 
scended to Mr. Henry Adams, and the other, perhaps of smaller 
dimensions, or a mere sketch, which later served the artist in pro- 
ducing other pictures from which to make engravings. From such 



2 Savage's Portrait of Washington. 

a painting or sketch was probably made the picture described in a 
" Catalogue of a Loan Collection of Portraits, under the auspices 
of the Antiquarians of the Art Institute " (Chicago, 1894), as 
follows : " No. 363. Washington. Oil painting by Edward Sav- 
age. The present owner, the artist's grandson, has been told by 
his father that the panel on which the portrait is painted was 
taken from the door of a state coach of the reign of George III. 
The coach had been broken up, and Mr. Savage, then in Lon- 
don, secured it as a curiosity. Lent by Charles H. Savage, 
Chicago." 

The Adams picture has been heliotyped in the " Centennial of 
Washington's Inauguration," edited by C. W. Bowen, New York, 
1892, where it can be compared with the Harvard picture, also 
reproduced there. This comparison will show that the replica 
varies slightly in some particulars of costume. 

In October, 1790, Washington, being then in Boston, re- 
ceived from the College an expression of gratitude for his services, 
in a formal address. In replying to it, the President hoped that 
the " Muses might long enjoy a tranquil residence within the walls 
of the University." 

The original picture is not alluded to in these proceedings, and 
had not apparently at that time been received in Cambridge. It 
was not placed in Harvard Hall probably till shortly before 
August 30, 1791, when the President and Fellows " voted that 
the thanks of this Corporation be given to Mr. Edward Savage, 
portrait painter, for his polite and generous attention to the Uni- 
versity, in painting a portrait of the President of the United 
States, taken by him from the life ; and that Mr. Savage's brother 
be requested to transmit to him this vote." 

We have direct testimony to the faithfulness of Savage's work 
as a likeness in the opinion of Josiah Quincy, later President of 
the College. Mr. Edmund Quincy, in a Life of his father, says that 
President Quincy always declared " that the portrait by Savage in 
the College Dining-room in Harvard Hall was the best likeness 
he had ever seen of Washington, though its merits as a work of 
art were but small. . . . One day [says the younger Quincy] 
when talking over those times in his old age, I asked my father 
to tell me what were his recollections of Washington's personal 
presence and bearing. * I will tell you,' said he, ' just how he 



Savage's Portrait of Washington. 3 

struck me. He reminded me of the gentlemen who used to come 
to Boston in those days to attend the General Court from Hamp- 
den or Franklin County in the western part of the State, — a 
little stiff in his person ; not a little formal in his manners ; not 
particularly at ease in the presence of strangers. He had the air 
of a country gentleman not accustomed to mix much in society, 
perfectly polite ; but not easy in his address and conversation, 
and not graceful in gait and movement.' " 

Savage's picture became popular enough in engravings, many of 
them not closely resembling the original, to make reproductions 
of it a source of profit to the artist for some years, while its popu- 
larity lasted. Savage had probably already gone to London, at the 
time the College requested his brother to transmit its vote to him. 
He there became for a while a pupil of Benjamin West. He had 
taken with him in some form the likeness which he had painted 
for the College. This sketch or drawing he used as the basis of 
an oval engraving in stipple, published in London, February 7, 
1792. This plate professes to be engraved by Savage " from the 
original picture painted in 1790, for the Philosophical Chamber 
at the University of Cambridge in Massachusetts." This engrav- 
ing, slightly retouched about the hair, was used in " Washington's 
Monuments of Patriotism," published at Philadelphia (1800) just 
after Washington's death. Another plate, somewhat smaller than 
Savage's, was made in 1793, and published by E. Jeffery, August 
10, 1793. Some tinted copies of this were issued. New engrav- 
ings of Savage's London print appeared in Washington's " Of- 
ficial Letters to Congress," Boston, 1796, engi-aved by S. Hill ; 
in " Epistles from General Washington," New York, 1796, en- 
graved in stipple by Rollenson; in the Philadelphia Monthly 
Magazine in 1798, engraved by Houston ; in " Legacies of Wash- 
ington, Trenton, 1800, engraved by W. Harrison ; and in " Wash- 
ingtonia," Baltimore, 1800, engraved by Tanner. J. C. Buttre, of 
New York, reengraved it in mezzotint in 1865, and O'Neill of New 
York in stipple in the same year, but the badge of the Cincin- 
nati was omitted in this last one. 

Savage published a new and larger plate (18x14 inches) in 
London in 1793, which is quite different as a composition from 
the Harvard picture. It represents Washington sitting at a table 
and holding a plan of the future city of Washington, and has this 



4 Savage's Portrait of Washington. 

inscription : " E. Savage, Pinx. et Sculp. George Washington, 
Esq., President of the United States of America. From the ori- 
ginal portrait, painted at the request of the Corporation of the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Published by E. Savage. 
June 25, 1793." There is a copy of this engraving in Harvard 
College Library. Later a new plate, a trifle narrower, was made, 
with a few changes in surroundings. 

This picture was reproduced, with some accessories omitted, in 
Winterbotham's " View of the United States," New York, 1796. 
Prints of it were also published at Providence in 1800, and later, 
from retouched plates, engraved by Wm. Hamlin. The figure 
is in civil dress, and does not have the badge of the Cincinnati 
Society, as the original military picture had, but the view of the 
head is much the same. 

A large group-picture by Savage was better known in the early 
part of this century than any of the engravings from his single 
likenesses of Washington. In this composite picture the figure of 
the President was suggested by the picture of 1793. This showed, 
in a plate measuring 18|^X 24|^ inches, a circle of Washington and 
his family, about a table, on which the plan under Washington's 
hand bore a plot of the new federal city. Mrs. Washington, the 
adopted children, and a negro servant make up the group. It 
was published in London March 10, 1798, and professed to be 
" painted and engraved by E. Savage." The sale of it demanded 
in time a new plate, and the impressions of this second issue are 
recognizable from some changes in the rosette of the hat lying 
upon the table. It was reengraved by Sartain in mezzotint at 
a later day. The original canvas was acquired by the Boston 
Museum in 1840, and is said to have been bought in 1892 by 
William F. Havemeyer, of New York. 

I have made use of W. S. Baker's " Engraved Portraits of 
Washington," Philadelphia, 1880, in supplementing my own 
memoranda on Savage and his work. 

Justin ^^insor, '53. 



W 84 



